Business enterprises have historically made toll free telephone numbers available to their customers or other parties to contact the enterprise to ask questions, resolve issues, request information, conduct business, or for other reasons. Toll free numbers allow callers to contact the enterprise without the caller being charged for the call. The charge for using a toll free number is typically paid by the enterprise being called. Toll free numbers have proven to be useful tools for customer service, telemarketing, and other types of customer/enterprise contact. Calls to an enterprise routed over a toll free network may be routed over other toll free networks in the process of delivering the call to its final destination. The enterprise may have various member service centers or call centers located in different geographies and a call may be routed to multiple locations before being completed. For large enterprises that have a significant customer service component, the costs associated with routing calls to multiple destinations and providing toll free services can become large.
The landscape for individually tolled long distance communications is changing. In many cases, customers use cellular phones to contact an enterprise. Cellular phone calling plans are often structured such that there is no additional charge for or distinction made between a call within the caller's local calling area and a long distance call. In other words, cellular telephone customers pay for a particular amount of usage, often measured in minutes, and there is no additional charge if these calling minutes are used to make long distance calls or calls to other area codes. At the same time, a growing number of customers are using voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phones or other types of network based communications in lieu of voice calls using the public switched telephone network (PSTN). An enterprise may receive incoming calls or communication requests in many different forms using different protocols and/or different applications. These interactions may all be directed to a single toll free number, a small number of toll free numbers, and/or a single network entry point. Once received, the enterprise may route or re-route the communication in a number of different ways. This routing may include charges to the enterprise for transferring the incoming communication to other networks and/or charges for use of these other networks.